Changing Role of Adjuvant Therapy in Stage III Melanoma
Mené sur des patients atteints d'un mélanome de stade IIIB-C ou IV ayant été réséqué (durée minimale de suivi : 107 mois), cet essai randomisé compare l'efficacité, du point de vue de la survie sans récidive à 9 ans, et la toxicité du nivolumab et de l'ipilimumab en traitement adjuvant
The concept of adjuvant therapy for cancer was developed at a time when systemic cancer treatment was limited to cytotoxic chemotherapy that could only be administered intermittently but rarely resulted in a complete response. Skipper1 and others hypothesized that if treatment were started early in the disease course, before the tumor was clinically apparent and when the tumor burden was several logs lower than that in patients with obviously metastatic disease, intermittent cytotoxic therapy might result in clearing of all malignant cells before the tumor became resistant to treatment or the patient could no longer tolerate treatment.
New England Journal of Medicine , éditorial, 2025